Recording

Modes

Every camera records continuously to its node. The recording mode decides which footage is kept:

Mode	Keeps
Continuous	Everything.
Motion	Footage around motion: from a motion zone, the camera's own motion events, an integration, or AI detection (see Motion).
Schedule	Footage that starts inside an enabled schedule window.
Event	Footage around an event tag rule that has Drives recording turned on.

Footage that isn't kept is deleted shortly after it's written, rather than waiting for retention.

All three non-continuous modes fail open. Until a camera has a motion zone, schedule window, or driving rule, it keeps everything instead of discarding it. The camera's page warns when this is happening.

Set the global mode under Settings → Recording defaults, and override it on a camera's page.

Pre-roll and post-roll

In Motion and Event modes, pre-roll is how much footage before activity is kept (so you see someone walk in), and post-roll is how much after it ends.

Segment length

Footage is written as files of a fixed length (60 seconds by default). Playback has to download part of a segment before it can start at the exact moment you pick. Shorter segments make seeking faster on high-resolution cameras, but create more files. Changing the length briefly restarts the camera's recording.

Schedule

A camera's Schedule page holds its windows: days, a start time, and an end time. An end time before the start time crosses midnight. Times use the recorder node's local clock. Windows only matter in Schedule mode.

Event tags

A camera's Event tags page turns ONVIF events from the camera (motion, alarms, analytics, tamper) into colored marks on the timeline.

• Start topic: the event that starts the tag. Pick one from Observed topics, which lists everything the camera has actually sent.
• Stop topic: optional. Leave it blank when the start topic carries its own true/false state (most motion and alarm topics do). Set it when the camera sends separate start and stop events.
• Drives recording: in Event or Motion mode, footage around this tag is kept.

A tag ends only when its stop event arrives, never on a timeout.